Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/448



Time the measure of his hours
 * By changeful bud and blossom keeps,

And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,
 * Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;

Where, to her poet’s turban stone,
 * The Spring her gift of flowers imparts,

Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown
 * In the warm soil of Persian hearts:

There sat the stranger, where the shade
 * Of scatteted date-trees thinly lay,

While in the hot clear heaven delayed
 * The long and still and weary day.

Strange trees and fruits above him hung,
 * Strange odors filled the sultry air,

Strange birds upon the branches swung,
 * Strange insect voices murmured there.

And strange bright blossoms shone around,
 * Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers,

As if the Gheber’s soul had found
 * A fitting home in Iran’s flowers.

Whate’er he saw, whate’er he heard,
 * Awakened feelings new and sad,—

No Christian garb, nor Christian word,
 * Nor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad,

But Moslem graves, with turban stones,
 * And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,

And graybeard Mollahs in low tones
 * Chanting their Koran service through.

The flowers which smiled on either hand,
 * Like tempting fiends, were such as they

Which once, o’er all that Eastern land,
 * As gifts on demon altars lay.

As if the burning eye of Baal
 * The servant of his Conqueror knew,

From skies which knew no cloudy veil,
 * The Sun’s hot glances smote him through.

“Ah me!” the lonely stranger said,
 * “The hope which led my footsteps on,

And light from heaven around them shed,
 * O’er weary wave and waste, is gone!

“Where are the harvest fields all white,
 * For Truth to thrust her sickle in?

Where flock the souls, like doves in flight,
 * From the dark hiding-place of sin?

“A silent horror broods o’er all,—
 * The burden of a hateful spell,—

The very flowers around recall
 * The hoary magi’s rites of hell!

“And what am I, o’er such a land
 * The banner of the Cross to bear?

Dear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand,
 * Thy strength with human weakness share!”

He ceased; for at his very feet
 * In mild rebuke a floweret smiled;

How thrilled his sinking heart to greet
 * The Star-flower of the Virgin’s child!

Sown by some wandering Frank, it drew
 * Its life from alien air and earth,

And told to Paynim sun and dew
 * The story of the Saviour’s birth.

From scorching beams, in kindly mood,
 * The Persian plants its beauty screened,

And on its pagan sisterhood,
 * In love, the Christian floweret leaned.

With tears of joy the wanderer felt
 * The darkness of his long despair

Before that hallowed symbol melt,
 * Which God’s dear love had nurtured there.